Language:

Resource Library

This page provides an archive of resources highlighting the costs of the war on drugs over the past 50 years.

The archive can be searched by keyword, or filtered according to cost/sub-cost and region/country. To filter the searches use the drop-down menus and sub menus below.

You can also order search items by date or alphabetically.

As well as written reports and analysis you can find images, video and audio media (see icons next to resource items in the search output list below). Images can also be viewed from the galleries on the individual cost pages.

This collection will be expanded and updated over the coming year with support of project partners. The Count the Costs website is an evolving resource that will host examples of the devastating costs of the war on drugs. It is a work in progress which will develop over a number of years. At this stage it can be viewed as partially filled library shelves that you can help to fill with appropriate material (see here for more information).

Resource type

Associated cost

Region/Country

You don't have Javascript enabled.Hover for more information! But don't worry: you can still use this web site! You have two options:

enable Javascript in your browser and then refresh this page, for a much enhanced experience.

At the 2010 Harm Reduction Conference in Austin, Texas, Professor William Martin, from the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, discusses how current US and Mexican drug policies lead to highly inflated narcotics prices and consequently fuel crime and violence in both countries. He claims the extent of this instability means that Mexico is in danger of becoming a 'failed state'.

Dr Kathleen Staudt, Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at El Paso, describes how drug-related violence in Mexico has skyrocketed in recent years, in particular in CiudadJuárez, which is now the murder capital of the world. Staudt argues that the vast resources committed to law enforcement measures would be better employed in tackling the root causes of problematic drug use.

Daniel Robelo from the Drug Policy Alliance provides an historical overview of Mexico's illicit drug trade. He reveals the staggering profits made by the heads of Mexican cartels and the extent of their resources and power.

A short video demonstrating the extent of support for the idea that drug policy should be dictated by the best available evidence. Filmed to promote the Vienna Declaration, the clip mentions how scientists from various fields, including Nobel Prize winners, support an approach to drugs which is centred around public health rather than criminal justice.

Former governor of New Mexico and 2012 presidential candidate Gary Johnson highlights the number of arrests for drug possession made in America every year and the financial cost of this punitive approach to US taxpayers.

A short film by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union that examines the detainment of drug users in compulsory rehabilitation centres throughout Asia. As revealed by a Human Rights Watch investigation, in such centres detainees are often forced to work for free, and are likely to be starved, beaten, tortured and raped.